


Silas Swims

by LaFlashdrive



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-27 02:46:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2676092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaFlashdrive/pseuds/LaFlashdrive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carmilla has a bit of a fear of going under water. Has ever since her submersion in the coffin of blood. She needs a little practice before she'll be able to get that sword. With some surprising help from her brother, she learns to tolerate the dive. If only for Laura's sake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silas Swims

She had gone swimming with Ell once. That was the last time she swam. Or. No. It wasn’t. She had jumped ship near the coast the first time she’d ever gone to New York to see the Met because she knew her arms would get her to shore faster than the boat ever could. There was also that time in the seventies when she had kidnapped one of the girls on the swim team. And that time Will and her had gotten into a scuff and wrestled their way into a pond.

In reality she had swam a number of times since Ell, but she had never dunked her head beneath the water since then. Submersion reminded her too much of the coffin. She couldn’t bring herself to count all those times as truly swimming.

Here she was now, though, dangling her legs over the edge of Silas’ pool, letting her toes dip into the shallow water. Had she really agreed to dive a thousand feet below sea level to get that sword? All to impress some nineteen year old?

“I thought cats didn’t like water.”

She was supposed to be alone. That’s why she was here. The swim team was having a … problem, had been using the fountain in front of the clock tower and the lake beside the Lustig for the last week of practice. The voice startled Carmilla and she jumped before she recognized it as her brother’s. It was only Will. Carmilla took a deep breath and calmed herself down.

“I thought rats only waded in sewers.”

Will shrugged, let the insult roll off his back like his skin was water-proof. Without any hesitation he sat down beside her, took off his shoes, and dipped his feet into the pool. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

“What are you doing here?” she spat back.

“Mother sent me to clean up the mess I made. No one appreciated the shark as much as I did.”

Carmilla scoffed. Of course her brother and his frat siblings had been responsible for the squaline infestation of the waters. That was part of the reason she hadn’t submerged herself fully yet. At least, that was part of the excuse she had given herself for why she hadn’t gone under yet. Part of her was upset to hear the shark was gone, that the only remaining danger the pool presented to her was a potential gulp of chlorine to burn her throat. It made her feel even weaker for not being able to put more than her feet into the water. “Idiot,” she scolded, though she wasn’t sure if she was referring to her brother or herself.

“It wasn’t so bad,” Will protested. “The shark made a better pet than yours.”

Will spoke maliciously of Laura, called her nothing more than a creature to be locked away when really he was the animal who deserved such a cage. Carmilla wanted to berate him, give him the lashing he deserved, but it wasn’t worth it. His threats were empty. As much as she wanted him to go away, she was glad he was here with her instead of stalking the girl she’d felt worried about leaving unprotected to come here in the first place anyway. She left it alone, left Will alone. Her lack of reaction forced him to continue to pester her.

“Besides,” he said. “I like to come here sometimes. I was on the Swim Team my first year here back in the ‘30s. I think I might have been a swimmer when I was alive. I can’t really remember. Maybe I’m just good at everything.”

Will smirked at her, leaned his head in too close to hers. Carmilla pushed it away, watched her nails dig into his cheek and thought about whether the water would wash away the already chipped polish and what color she should paint them next time. Black, probably.

Will handled the physical rejection surprisingly well. “Were you ever on the Swim Team?” he asked.

“No.” They’d each been on a lot of teams, tried out for different recreational activities every cycle so that when their teams looked at old yearbooks, they wouldn’t wonder why someone who looked exactly like them had been on the team twenty years ago. Carmilla had joined countless sororities, been on the student council, and assisted as an Intro to Existentialism TA, but she had never been fond of swimming.

“I thought about doing it again this year,” Will continued. “But I’m glad I joined the Zetas instead. The Boy is an endless source of amusement.”

Carmilla scoffed again, shook her head at how easily amused her brother was at watching some big lug bumble over his own two legs every day. When she didn’t say anything in response, Will seemed to run out of conversation starters. Carmilla wasn't offended.

She wasn’t here to make small talk with Will. She had a purpose, and she was wasting time. She wasn’t here to chitchat with her brother and form the sibling bond their mother had been trying to push onto them ever since she brought Carmilla back from Paris in the fifties to greet William for the first time when he was young and excited and ever so puppy-like. She’d thought as much of him then as he thought of Kirsch now.

“I think I’ll go for a swim.”

Within moments Will was swinging his feet back onto the edge of the pool, rippling the water with gentle waves that crested over Carmilla’s toes, rose up to her ankles and swallowed her feet whole. Will threw his shirt on one of the benches behind him, and when more clothes followed, Carmilla turned her gaze away.

Will splashed into the pool like a pro, like he wasn’t a swimmer in his last life but a dolphin instead. His frame was distorted beneath the surface of the water, like pixels in a blur, and Carmilla watched him lurk beneath the surface for longer than a human would be able to without coming up for air. She imagined he looked more predatory than the shark. His teeth were sharp when he finally reared his head and grinned.

“Care for a skinny dip, Callah?”

Will’s eyebrows were raised, suggestive. Carmilla knew better than to get naked in front of him. When she’d first met him, sickeningly cute puppy or not, he had immediately tried to hump her leg and Carmilla wasn’t fond of that particular type of attention. Now he just taunted her because he could, because she was a lesbian and she was off limits. “In your dreams, pretty boy.”

“Worth a shot,” he said before diving below the water again.

Carmilla watched him swim with something similar to jealousy, though her pride wouldn’t let her call it that. He could bring his head beneath the water so easily, let the liquid completely submerse him and not care that he was contained, feel secure that he could get out of the pool at any moment if he wanted to. Carmilla didn’t have that. She had to live with the coffin. Maman had punished her in a way Will would never be punished because he was a goody two-shoes, the baby of the family. It made Carmilla angry. She might have hit him if it didn’t require going into the water. 

It wasn’t that she wanted to hate him, just that she couldn’t help it. He would make a good asset if he wasn’t evil, if he wasn’t whipped by Mother. He could get that sword for her and wouldn’t think twice about it.

But he wouldn’t be getting the sword for Carmilla. He would be getting it for Laura. That was why Carmilla had agreed to do this in the first place. To impress Laura. That was the only reason she had agreed to face her fears.

Will snuck up on her, grabbed her toes beneath the surface and made her jerk her legs from the water all together, hug them to her chest as the liquid dripped onto her shorts and her thighs.

Will laughed when she jumped. “Is kitty scared of a little water?”

Carmilla seethed, batted a human paw into the pool and splashed Will violently in the face. He shook his head like a dog.

“You’re no fun,” he pouted, climbing out of the water again, too naked and too close to her for Carmilla’s comfort. She was thankful when he pulled a towel out of the bin and put his clothes back on after drying himself off.

“Well, duty calls. I better get back to Mother before she starts to think I couldn’t handle a little shark by myself. I’ll see you around, kitty.”

He threw his towel at her face like she was going to use it next, like they were good at sharing things like towels with each other. They weren’t. 

Carmilla wasn’t going to share her glory with him either.

She threw herself into the water backwards. There was a peace in floating on her back, at feeling the water slowly seep into the denim of her shorts and the cotton of her shirt. She could stay like this forever, lungs filled with air, breathing unobstructed, the gentle waves of the pool carrying her wherever they desired. There was nothing bad about the water in this state, the liquid as tranquil and relaxing as if she were lying on her bed with Laura on top of her curled up into her chest. It was nice. But Carmilla knew she needed to dive to the bottom

She sucked it up like she had Laura’s blood.

Her eyes were open when her head went under. The chlorine stung, even to a vampire, but she traded the pain for her vision, for the sight of light above her head and a permeable roof to the man-made river. She reached a hand up to the surface for good measure. Air chilled her palm.

This wasn’t like the coffin. It wasn’t dark, it didn’t smell like blood, and it didn’t constantly remind her of how hungry she was. She wasn’t starving this time. She had fed from her blood bags today. Had fed from Laura not all that long ago. The thought of the girl’s warm blood on her lips forced Carmilla to close her eyes and shudder.

She kept her eyes shut after that. The pool was bright, but a thousand feet below sea level would not be illuminated by anything except the lanterns of anglerfish and the divine golden glow of the sword she was after. She had to get used to the dark again, was already, finally, getting used to the dark again.

Nothing was black when she closed her eyes, hadn’t been for the last couple of months. Laura’s face, Laura’s glowing, luminous face, was etched onto the back of her eyelids now. It blinded her every time she blinked, kept her up each night with its light. Laura’s image was the only thing she needed. Just the knowledge of her, the understanding that Carmilla would someday be free, would someday meet this charming, naïve provincial girl she now didn’t know how she had lived without before, would have brightened up that coffin, would have made every year buried underground okay, worth it. If she had known about Laura then, she would not have come out of the ground so traumatized.

Her hands scrapped the concrete bottom of the pool before she knew it.

She opened her eyes, watched herself palm the surface, so much like stone, so much like the cave she was searching for. It was similar in every way. Reassured her in every way. 

She could do this. She could do this for Laura.


End file.
